For Those I’m-a-Bad-Parent Days

 

Photo of Nakalele Blowhole in Maui by Sara Tippett {my sister!}

 

I give my babies their good nights, two of them returning mine with their own good nights and I-love-you’s. The third child is silent. He isn’t happy with Mama. No ma’am. And he makes certain I know it.

I climb up the stairs with heavy footsteps, feeling plumb tuckered out from the last few days of discord. Some heart issues run deep and extracting them takes time.

It would be easy to fall in a heap and cry up to God, “Clearly he is behaving this way because I am a bad parent!” I have done this before.

But no. Not this time.

In the past ten years, the Ultimate Parent has gotten through to me by gently saying, “No, daughter. This child is yours because you and your husband are just the right parents for him. I am working something out in you just as much as I am working something out in him. Now just trust me and hang tight. I will see you through this season as I have all the others.”

I tilt my head back and breath in calmer air.

In this season called the tween years-this new and unfamiliar territory-our assignment is just the same as it was when we first held his 5 lb. 14 oz. tiny self.

We are to model Christ’s love to him. His impartial, unconditional, I’ll-always-take-you-back, true blue love. Sure, the children grow, and with growth comes different challenges and choices. But our choice to model love remains constant and true. Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes this is hard.

Before I head to bed, I hear footsteps on the stairs. I peek around the corner and see this precious child. He asks, “Mama, will you come tuck me in?”

“Sure,” I say.

“I’d love to.”

This is a repost from my first writing home I needed to re-read today!